Just a few words about the current wave of anti-establishment sentiment washing around the world – electing new people to helm a preexisting establishment structure will not change a thing.

Unless the people elected have expressed a commitment to tear the establishment down (not alter, change or “improve” – because the inertia of an established, entrenched bureaucratic structure is too strong to be altered, changed or “improved”), the “establishment” will remain – “meet the new boss, same as the old boss.”

Look at the 60’s and today – the people who were fighting “the man” in the 60’s actually became “the man” and today they fight to preserve “the man.” Progressives now fight to eliminate the same freedoms that they fought to achieve in the 60’s – just look at their current stance on free speech as opposed to that same stance in 1968 – the only difference is that now they are in charge, so the status quo must be preserved. Outrage depends on whose ox gets gored.

Thinking that the collectivism (socialism, Marxism, communism) can be defeated by changing the elected class of politicians is complete folly, as numerous people more intelligent than yours truly (Winston Churchill, Milton Friedman, F.A. Hayek, Ludwig von Mises, Ayn Rand) have noted, the governmental bureaucracy (the deep state) is where the cancer of socialism resides – and from whence it regrows. Thinking that a simple election will change that is like trying to cure cancer by cutting away the healthy tissue and leaving the malignant tumor.

If you have ever wondered why there has been so little success in the past 30 years with the promised “reforms” conservative politicians have promised, why the GOP “takeover” in 1994 evaporated, why government spending is never controlled (much less cut), why progressivism continues its march, this is why – no electoral (i.e. political) force on the face of this planet can overcome the inertia of a deep state committed to its own survival.

Some are positing that the Brexit hails a new age of anti-globalism – those people may be correct on a macro level but to think that this is a blow against socialism is simply to ignore how socialist the UK is and remains. The amazing thing is that it represents how totally corrupt the socialism of the EU is that a socialist country like the UK thought the edicts from Brussels too intrusive. To propose that this is a blow against the elite rule of a socialist structure is premature, that determination is yet to be made and greatly depends on that happens next. My opinion is that the UK can never overcome a bureaucracy that has been core to its government and governance for over 75 years.

The answer isn’t a yuge, well-oiled, more efficiently functioning Leviathan as the GOP candidate promises – that is actually the socialists dream. Nor is it more of the same progressivism as the putative Democrat candidate promises. Perhaps it isn’t a “burn it to the ground” exercise but I can’t imagine an effective response that isn’t close to that. 150 years of American socialism will not be unwound in 4 years.